Local News
Pro-Life speakers challenge listeners
MERCER COUNTY — Pro-Life of Mercer County held their annual prayer breakfast Saturday morning with Dr. David Forte as their guest speaker.
Forte is a professor of law at Cleveland State University who served in the United Nations during the Reagan administration and has helped draft legislation in the Ohio General Assembly dealing with, among other matters, abortion, according to biographical information.
He began his speech with a story of visiting Berlin while it was under Communist rule, just after West Germany began to teach about the Holocaust. Two young women told him, after learning the history, “We felt like going home and spitting in their (parents’) faces.”
In comparing the atrocities of the Holocaust to what he and other anti-abortion advocates see as the taking of human lives, Forte said, “At that moment, I promised that my children will not say that about me.”
Speaking to a crowd of around 200 people, young and old, Forte gave an informative address on Supreme Court decisions on abortion since Roe v. Wade, the controversial decision that legalized abortion.
Forte argued that justices provided no rationale for their decision, and that the Supreme Court was transformed into a policy-making body as a result.
He said presidents were being elected based on which judges they would nominate, and justices were being nominated in order to enact public policies that could not be created through the electoral process involving the people.
Also speaking was Jeniece Learned, executive director of Pregnancy Services of Western Pennsylvania, a pro-life crisis pregnancy center on North Oakland Avenue in Sharon.
She spoke on the center’s nearness to having its own ultra-sound machine, and put out a call for personnel to operate it.
Mrs. Learned, who announced that she was stepping down from the pregnancy center while she fights breast cancer, reported that an “abortion-minded” mother had decided to see her pregnancy through after seeing the ultra-sound images.
Then Mrs. Learned asked, “How many African-Americans do you see here?” She asked them to raise their hands. Only the Rev. Russell Penn, who gave the invocation, appeared to raise his hand.
“One,” Mrs. Learned answered. She said at the pregnancy center, both white and black girls seek help, and also said black women are three times as likely to seek an abortion.
“We need someone who will stand up for black women in this room,” Learned said.
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Court nixes ruling man is sexually violent predator
State Superior Court has denied a local judge’s request to issue a precedential opinion in a rape case.
Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge John C. Reed had ruled that Chad S. Thompson, 24, formerly of Stoneboro, is a sexually violent predator, but Superior Court said in a 2-1 decision July 8 that an expert’s testimony was insufficient to back that declaration.
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Stacey wants to continue fight over razed home
Raymond Stacey has requests pending in three courts as he presses his long-running attempt to prosecute the city of Hermitage and those he believes are responsible for illegally demolishing his parents’ house.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, on April 29 quashed an appeal because Stacey did not file his argument brief and appendix of supporting documents.
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Burglars strike while residents sleep
Several Shenango Valley residents’ homes were broken into overnight Tuesday and Wednesday while they slept.
Two burglaries in Sharon involved people entering open windows.
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Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
Hermitage commissioners introduced an ordinance Wednesday to increase sanitary user fees.
Residents tapped into the Hermitage Municipal Authority lines now pay $95 a quarter. That rate will bump up to $105 a quarter on Jan. 1, under the proposed rate hike.
Two more hikes on Jan. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013, will result in the rates increasing 50 percent from the current fee. -
Water is on at Forrest Brooke
Water service has been restored at Forrest Brooke Manufactured Home Community after well problems left the 165-unit complex dry Tuesday.
A boil and conserve water advisory has been issued by the DEP and will remain in place until tests confirm the water is safe to drink, Forrest Brooke’s manager Pete Havens said.
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Storm damages trees, wires
Thunderstorms ripped through parts of Mercer and neighboring counties Wednesday night, downing trees and wires and keeping rescue workers on their toes.
A Mercer County 911 dispatcher shortly after 8 p.m. said they were busy with calls across the northern part of the county. He said there had been a few reports of trees falling on homes.
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City leaders open to talks
Sharon officials aren’t opposed to sitting down with their counterparts in Farrell to revisit the idea of combining the two struggling cities.
“It never costs a penny to talk and there’s no (idea) that’s not worth looking at,” Sharon councilman Ed Palanski said. “I think it would be foolish to oppose looking at the idea.”
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Murphy’s Law doesn’t faze regional planners
A complicated, two-day public meeting blitz in 32 counties ran headlong into Murphy’s Law in Mercer County on Tuesday.
The group Power of 32 are looking to re-write the regional map and create a grand, 15-year strategic economic plan for the 32 counties in four states that make up the Ohio River basin and greater Pittsburgh area.
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Forrest Brooke copes with water outage
Residents of Forrest Brooke Mobile Home Community in Jefferson and Lackawannock Townships woke up Tuesday morning to find they didn’t have any water.
Managers of the park could not be reached for comment, but residents said they were told they won’t get water service back for at least another month.
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City facing bleak financial reality
LaVon Saternow has been Farrell’s city manager since 1992. Shortly after she took the job, Sharon Steel, the city’s economic engine, officially closed down.
Since, the city has struggled to remain solvent and Mrs. Saternow said it is facing its worst financial crisis in her tenure.
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Court nixes ruling man is sexually violent predator
